I went on a kayaking / biking trip with Pigweed and some other friends this weekend. We put our bikes at the southern end, launched the kayaks from the northern end, then kayaked down and rode back to get our cars. There was a lot of shuttling involved, but it was a good trip. It was that perfect distance where you feel a little stretched, but if it was much farther it wouldn’t have been as fun.
The C&O canal was obsolete before it was finished because the railroads came along, and they were so much more efficient. Some people (including me) have used that as an example of inefficient government. “Look at these silly people spending all this money on something that never came to much! That’s government for you.”
I’m not sure it’s fair to blame government for this one. A private company could have made the same bad bargain, although (1) this was a huge undertaking, and maybe only government could have done it, and (2) the private company is spending its own money. (Except that government sometimes steps in and subsidizes such efforts.)
The idea for the canal started back with George Washington. He wanted to use the Potomac as a means of connecting the east coast with the interior. Later on, the Erie canal worked pretty well, so … why not this one?
The C&O canal was also a good way to make jobs for Civil War veterans.
One thing that has always bugged me about the canal is the physics of it. You’ve got a mule or a horse walking along the path, with a line going out at an angle to a barge in the canal. That should pull the barge into the edge of the canal. I assume the barge has rudders to prevent that, but it seems like an awkward way to move something. (Yes, I have towed, and been towed, many times, and I’ve also skied and pulled skiers, so I know you can cruise along nicely with the tow line at an angle. It’s just not efficient.)
Now it’s just a pleasant park for hiking, biking and such, and with a connection to the Great Allegheny Passage, you can bike from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh!
Maybe some day.
Thanks for this interesting travelogue. I didn’t know much about the canal; now I know much more.
You’re not far from it, Joe. Maybe we should take a hike one of these days.
Blaming the government here is like in 1948 saying… “Stupid goverment, why did you buy all these propeller planes?” Or, in 1910 saying, “Stupid government, why did you buy these horses and why do you have blacksmiths on the payroll?”
This past Sunday I was going to say to my daughter, “Ditto.” But, then I realized, she’s 24 and has no idea what a ditto is. So, I settled for, “You too.”
It’s not quite the same. Propeller planes are still useful, and horses were still useful for a long time before cars took over.
But that’s not really the point. The question is whether government should be spending taxpayer money on a particular technology. While that’s necessary in some cases (e.g., the government had to decide on an operating system back when CPM and DOS were in competition), generally speaking, it’s a good idea to leave those things to the market.